Means AL ROY Finalist

[atomic]

9 hours ago, jerios55 said:

Means pitching to his numbers of this team should count for more.  Alvarez had protection.  Both had great seasons. But it's silly if being on a winning team is a factor.  (Not saying it isn't true)

Shouldn’t factor into rookie of the year.  You would think it would factor in MVP but they gave Trout MVP in 2026 and his team was terrible.

[atomic]

10 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

It wasn't his fault, he had a .343/.443/.742 line in AAA.  And pretty much from the day he was called up he was one of the best hitters in the league.

If you average rWAR and fWAR Alvarez and Means are very close in total value, but Alvarez lapped the field in production per unit of play.

I couldn't find any definition or guidance on voting for the ROY, but I doubt it says somewhere that the voters should prioritize total value over per-game impact.  If that was the case they wouldn't have given McCovey the award in '59 when he only played 52 games, they should have given it to the Phils' Jim Owens who started 30 games and had 221 innings pitched.  Or Joe Koppe or George Altman, who each played the whole year.

 

But the total season should count.  What if someone came up September 1 and was hot.  Do they deserve the award? Also he was a DH so take points away for that.  Means deserves consideration for the award.  

[Frobby]

16 minutes ago, atomic said:

Shouldn’t factor into rookie of the year.  You would think it would factor in MVP but they gave Trout MVP in 2026 and his team was terrible.

They’ve already given the award out for 2026, and you already know his team was terrible?     I’ve got to make a trip to Vegas that spring!

[DrungoHazewood]

38 minutes ago, atomic said:

But the total season should count.  What if someone came up September 1 and was hot.  Do they deserve the award? Also he was a DH so take points away for that.  Means deserves consideration for the award.  

I think people can exercise good judgment and see that 20 games isn't the same as 80, and that 80 games at an MVP level probably has more impact than 150 innings at somewhat better than average performance.  I could be mistaken about the first part.

Means deserves consideration, and I can see an argument for him finishing second.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

47 minutes ago, atomic said:

Shouldn’t factor into rookie of the year.  You would think it would factor in MVP but they gave Trout MVP in 2026 and his team was terrible.

I never understood why an individual award should take into account how well the owner and GM did their jobs.

[atomic]

42 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think people can exercise good judgment and see that 20 games isn't the same as 80, and that 80 games at an MVP level probably has more impact than 150 innings at somewhat better than average performance.  I could be mistaken about the first part.

Means deserves consideration, and I can see an argument for him finishing second.

 

And 80 games isn't the same as 160.  There is an argument for him finishing first.   87 games isn't enough to win the award for a DH in my opinion.  

[atomic]

44 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I never understood why an individual award should take into account how well the owner and GM did their jobs.

It is called most valuable player award. Not best player award.  How can a player be all that valuable to a team that won 74 games?  What would have happened if he weren't on the team? They would have won 66 games?  Everyone on here tells me it is better to win 66 games than 74 games. 

[Frobby]

18 minutes ago, atomic said:

It is called most valuable player award. Not best player award.  How can a player be all that valuable to a team that won 74 games?  What would have happened if he weren't on the team? They would have won 66 games?  Everyone on here tells me it is better to win 66 games than 74 games. 

I can see both sides of the argument.   To me the team performance is a consideration, but a secondary one that only comes into play if the decision between 2-3 players is otherwise a very close one.    

[DrungoHazewood]

17 minutes ago, atomic said:

It is called most valuable player award. Not best player award.  How can a player be all that valuable to a team that won 74 games?  What would have happened if he weren't on the team? They would have won 66 games?  Everyone on here tells me it is better to win 66 games than 74 games. 

That argument quickly dissolves into wackiness.  If Mike Trout wasn't on the Angels the Angels would have won 60-some games instead of 72.  If Mookie Betts weren't on the Red Sox they would have won 76 or 78 games instead of 84.   Value in baseball is in wins.  Mike Trout being the best and most valuable player in baseball has nothing to do with whether or not Billy Eppler did his job.

If MVP really means the guy who got a team to the postseason, you'll end up with the MVP being the guy on an 88-win team who was least replaceable.  So, someone like Josh Hader.  Without Josh Hader the Brewers don't play the wildcard game, and where else are you going to find a guy who strikes out almost two an inning, so he's the MVP.  Even though he's a 2.5-win player.

And if you're giving it to the best player on the best team, then you can just have Yanks and Sox brass plates pre-made to glue on the trophy, since they have the best record most years.

[DrungoHazewood]

30 minutes ago, atomic said:

And 80 games isn't the same as 160.  There is an argument for him finishing first.   87 games isn't enough to win the award for a DH in my opinion.  

The DH thing doesn't mean anything.  We're already taking defense into account.  Do you say that Verlander shouldn't have been the MVP in '11 because he went 0-for-4?  Should John Means be docked because he only played 31 games and had one hit all year?  Talk about a one-dimensional player.

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The DH thing doesn't mean anything.  We're already taking defense into account.  Do you say that Verlander shouldn't have been the MVP in '11 because he went 0-for-4?  Should John Means be docked because he only played 31 games and had one hit all year?  Talk about a one-dimensional player.

Means had a wRC+ of 407, that's more than twice what Alvarez had (177).

[atomic]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

That argument quickly dissolves into wackiness.  If Mike Trout wasn't on the Angels the Angels would have won 60-some games instead of 72.  If Mookie Betts weren't on the Red Sox they would have won 76 or 78 games instead of 84.   Value in baseball is in wins.  Mike Trout being the best and most valuable player in baseball has nothing to do with whether or not Billy Eppler did his job.

If MVP really means the guy who got a team to the postseason, you'll end up with the MVP being the guy on an 88-win team who was least replaceable.  So, someone like Josh Hader.  Without Josh Hader the Brewers don't play the wildcard game, and where else are you going to find a guy who strikes out almost two an inning, so he's the MVP.  Even though he's a 2.5-win player.

And if you're giving it to the best player on the best team, then you can just have Yanks and Sox brass plates pre-made to glue on the trophy, since they have the best record most years.

Hockey has both an MVP award and a best player award along with award for leading goal scorer. If you want to think Trout was anyway the most valuable player in the majors I don’t know what I can tell you.  But people on here want to trade any decent player we have as in their words there is no difference between 50 wins and 70 wins. 
 

Anyway they should just create another award. Call it the Trout award and give it to  the player with the most WAR.  

[TonySoprano]

Before the season, Vlad, Jr. was thought to be a slam-dunk.  He's not in the discussion and Means is.  That's enough for me.

[ShaneDawg85]

Major props to Means for getting to this point, because he without question deserved it.  Just like making the All Star game, Means was probably one of the last you'd have expected to put up a performance worthy to get in the running.  He's not going to win, it'd be shocking if he did, but he deserves the recognition of just being in the conversation.

FWIW the Orioles to finish in the ROY voting since 2000:

2017-Mancini (3rd)

2012-Chen (4th)

2010-Matusz (T-5th)

2006-Markakis (6th)

2004-Cabrera (3rd)

2002-R. Lopez & J. Julio (2nd/3rd)

Not exactly the most awe inspiring list, both in terms of the number of players and the players actually on the list. 

As an aside, I'll always hate Eric Hinske because he won the award in 2002 instead of Rodrigo Lopez.  Yeah Hinkse was more of a traditional rookie than Lopez was and was younger, and had a higher WAR, but I felt then and now that Lopez was so beyond the realm of expectations that it would've been acceptable for him to win the award, and that his contributions meant more to the Orioles that season than Hinkse's did to the Blue Jays.  Take Lopez off the Orioles and they're a 100-110 loss team, take Hinske off the Blue Jays and they're still a 70 something win team.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

Means had a wRC+ of 407, that's more than twice what Alvarez had (177).

Zach/k Britton has the 2nd-highest career OPS+ of any player in history (min 8 PAs).